Bundy Lawyer Wants Stay Or She'll Quit Case

February 26, 1986|By Jim Runnels of The Sentinel Staff

A Washington lawyer representing murderer Ted Bundy said Tuesday she will leave the case if the U.S. Supreme Court does not delay his execution scheduled for March 4 and that she has Florida lawyers preparing a last-minute fight to save Bundy's life.

Polly Nelson said that if her attempt fails to win a stay for Bundy it will fall to tax-supported attorneys to carry on.

Nelson applied Tuesday for the stay of execution. A court spokesman said a decision was expected quickly.

Nelson argued that attorneys do not have enough time to prepare Bundy's case before his date with Florida's electric chair.

That argument has failed several times in various courts -- including Monday in the Florida Supreme Court -- and legal sources who asked not to be identified said Tuesday they were stunned by Nelson's use of it.

''The problem is that the argument deals with things that go back to 1978, and the court will probably take issue with Bundy claiming that seven or eight years is not enough time to mount an appeal,'' one source said.

Also complicating Bundy's argument is his constant refusal of legal help. He contacted Nelson last week only after firing another attorney.

Larry Spalding, who heads the office established by the state last year to provide appeals for death row inmates, said Tuesday his staff is preparing a complete appeal that could begin Thursday with a request for a new trial.

If that motion fails, Spalding's attorneys already will have filed appeals in the Florida Supreme Court, U.S. District Court in Miami, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bundy, a former law student, was convicted and given separate death sentences for the murders of two women at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University.

Prosecutors said Bundy slipped into the sorority house in the early morning hours of Jan. 15, 1978, and crept from room to room, bludgeoning four young women with an oak club. Two survived.

The slain women, Margaret Bowman, 21, and Lisa Levy, 20, were clubbed and strangled. Levy also was bitten on the breast and buttocks. Dental impressions of those bite marks later became key evidence in Bundy's trial.

Bundy also was given a third death sentence in the murder of Lake City schoolgirl Kimberly Diane Leach, 12, the same year.